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posted by janrinok on Thursday November 07 2019, @09:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the will-they-call-it-Titanic? dept.

University of Rochester researchers, inspired by diving bell spiders and rafts of fire ants, have created a metallic structure that is so water repellent, it refuses to sink—no matter how often it is forced into water or how much it is damaged or punctured.

Could this lead to an unsinkable ship? A wearable flotation device that will still float after being punctured? Electronic monitoring devices that can survive in long term in the ocean?

All of the above, says Chunlei Guo, professor of optics and physics, whose lab describes the structure in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces[$].

The structure uses a groundbreaking technique the lab developed for using femtosecond bursts of lasers to "etch" the surfaces of metals with intricate micro- and nanoscale patterns that trap air and make the surfaces superhydrophobic, or water repellent.

The researchers found, however, that after being immersed in water for long periods of time, the surfaces may start to lose their hydrophobic properties.

Enter the spiders and fire ants, which can survive long periods under or on the surface of water. How? By trapping air in an enclosed area. Argyroneta aquatic spiders, for example, create an underwater dome-shaped web—a so-called diving bell— that they fill with air carried from the surface between their super-hydrophobic legs and abdomens. Similarly, fire ants can form a raft by trapping air among their superhydrophobic bodies.

metal that won't sink

[YOUTUBE VIDEO]: Unsinkable Metal


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:22PM (1 child)

    by Immerman (3985) on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:22PM (#917618)

    My favorite nonsense from the video "this could be used to make ships that stay afloat even when severely damaged"

    No. It couldn't. Not unless the entire ship were made of similarly etched stacked wafers, with no room for cargo.

    Ships don't sink because water sticks to the hull, they sink because water fllls the space inside the hull, displacing the air that kept the average density of the ship less than that of the water. Filling your ship with useless spaces that water won't flow into would keep you afloat, but it'd also make your ship useless as a ship.

    There's also a relatively cheap and easy alternative - closed-cell foams. They keep the water out of the space they occupy, and the air in, maintaining buoyancy.

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  • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Friday November 08 2019, @03:51AM

    by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday November 08 2019, @03:51AM (#917733) Journal

    I read the summary and had the same thought. As soon as I read "it won't sink no matter the damage", "apply it to ships", and "it traps air", I knew we had a science award winner. This couldn't even pass the basic sniff test.